The Carnivore's Guide to Portland, Oregon

Forget all those clichés about a city full of vegan food: Several Portland restaurants are leading the cow and pig charge.

Chefs in Portland hold the same philosophy toward the region’s meat as they do its produce: Raise it up the right way and treat it with the utmost care at every turn. Here are the showstopper dishes at five local temples of the flesh.

In a town dead serious about its sandwiches, Lardo makes gut-filling, meat-laden creations beloved enough to propel this one-time food cart into a trio of brick-and-mortar shops. The porchetta, burger, and pork belly gyro each have their fan base, but the banh mi is a bit more nuanced, with its dense pork meatballs and canopy of crunchy pickled vegetables and fresh cilantro. Necessary for meat lovers: the dirty fries, strewn with pork scraps.

The former Olympic Provisions (a trademark complaint from a certain quadrennial athletic event precipitated the name change) is Portland’s foremost house of salumi. Owner Elias Cairo has Greek roots, but a particular knack for Spain’s signature paprika-spiked salami. He makes three versions, each a deep ruby hue but with varying degrees of kick. Chorizo anchors the Spanish charcuterie board at both of OP’s restaurants, and whole salamis are available in nicer markets around town.

Describing Ox as a steakhouse does inadequate justice to the Argentine-inspired menu of brawny steaks and chops, ushered to meat nirvana via a custom grill with more trappings than a luxury sports car. Chefs Greg Denton and Gabrielle Quiñonez Denton have cooked in enough fine dining kitchens to know how make a steak so perfect it needs no adornment, but go ahead and spoon on the house chimichurri anyway.

Owner Rodney Muirhead is a native Texan who really loves meat and really hates shortcuts, both of which are excellent qualities to have when plying Portlanders with brisket, pork ribs, and sausage links smoked low and slow over Willamette Valley oak. The colossal Pitboss platter feels a little bit like a dare: a quarter pound each of brisket and juicy pulled pork, two ribs, a sausage link, and two sides. Naturally, Portland’s version of Texas-style barbecue involves cocktails and local craft beer.

Chef Naomi Pomeroy was at the forefront of Portland’s collective meat obsession, and her particular combo of high-level technique and unabashed carnivory is on full display in the charcuterie course that’s a constant on Beast’s oft-changing menu. Bites of pâté, rillettes, and cured meat circle the plate: count on silky steak tartare, a delicate smear of chicken liver mousse on a cracker, and one insane foie gras "bon-bon."